Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed, and we'll only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe

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becoming one. Welcome back to another episode of more from Sam.

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and we've had them submit questions in advance of the show.

And then we've asked them to provide any follow-ups using the chat feature so that we can try to have Sam, you, address their feedback in real time.

All right, let's get on to our first topic. I want to

start with Iran again. Last time we discussed holding two thoughts on our heads at the same time,

one, you thinking it was right to get rid of the Iranian regime, and two, that you were worried

that we were being led by an incompetent administration. How are you feeling at this moment?

Well, I think that sort of twofold impression has only solidified.

I mean, certainly the incompetence has been on display and the consequences of the initial

incompetence.

I mean, say, the initial incompetence was to have done absolutely nothing to prepare the American

people or Congress for this war, to have lurched into it in an authoritarian way, to have

given fuel and even seeming evidence

to conspiracy theorists who think we were dragged into it by Israel. I mean, I'll acknowledge that

Israel and America don't have precisely the same set of concerns and incentives in this war,

right? So it's rational to differentiate between Israel's

needs and Americas. I mean, I think that's, to some degree, that's true. So we could talk about that.

And yeah, so there's no clear rationale for the war. I mean, Trump has said all manner of

...